Seeing climate change: psychological distance and connection to nature

To develop targeted climate change curricula, it is imperative to understand how students perceive and observe the localized effects of climate change. Our work used a quantitatively driven, parallel mixed methods research design to study potential factors that contribute to undergraduate biology students seeing the local effects of climate change. Our research questions asked students to provide examples of climate change occurring in their state and examined the predictive power of connection to nature, psychological distance, and other factors on whether students see climate change or not. Our quantitative data show a student's connection to nature, their spatial climate awareness, and their geographic location were the three most important factors in predicting a student seeing and discussing climate change occurring in their state. Further, our qualitative data support our quantitative findings indicating that personal experiences in nature are integral for students connecting with nature and seeing climate change at scales smaller than their state.